456 



Diphtheria 



pure culture upon the blood-serum mixture to which it is 

 added. 



The impossibility of 

 making an accurate 

 diagnosis of diph- 

 theria without a bac- 

 teriologic examination 

 has caused many pri- 

 vate physicians and 

 many medical socie- 

 ties and boards of 

 health to equip labor- 

 atories where bacte- 

 riologic examinations 

 can be made. The 

 method requires some 

 apparatus, though a 

 competent bacteriolo- 

 gist can often make 

 shift with a bake- 

 oven, a wash-boiler, 

 and other household 

 furniture, instead of 

 the regular sterilizers 

 and incubators, which 

 are expensive. 



Bacteriologic Di- 

 agnosis. When it is 

 desired to make a 

 bacteriologic diagno- 

 sis in suspected diph- 

 theria, or to secure the 



bacillus in pure culture, a sterile platinum wire having 

 a small loop at the end, or a swab made by wrapping a 

 little absorbent cotton about the end of a piece of wire 

 and carefully sterilizing it in a test-tube, is introduced 

 into the throat and touched to the false membrane, after 

 which it is carefully smeared over the surface of at least 

 three of the blood-serum mixture tubes, without either 

 again touching the throat or being sterilized. The tubes 

 thus inoculated are stood away in an incubating oven at 

 the temperature of 37 C. for twelve hours, then exam- 



Fig. 148. The Providence Health De- 

 partment outfit for diphtheria diagnosis, 

 consisting of a pasteboard box containing a 

 swab-tube and a serum-tube, both with 

 etched surface on which to write the name 

 and address of patients, etc. 



